Trivia

1001 Video Games

Amiga Power controversy

Amiga Power magazine declared this to be the greatest Amiga game of all time in
1991, and controversially repeated this in their list compiled in early 1992, suggesting that titles like Formula 1 Grand Prix, Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker and Populous 2 were too specialised in their appeal, whereas Rainbow Islands was an across-the-board title. Ironically, Formula 1 Grand Prix was at #1 in the charts that month, and Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker had spent over 6 months in the top 5. The magazine claimed to be surprised when Rainbow Islands was as high as #7 in the readers' Top 100 later that year (two of the games above it, Sensible Soccer and Monkey Island 2 were released in between the two lists). It also made the top 10 in the magazine's 1993 and 1994 lists, and #18 in the next Readers' top 100 vote in late 1994.

Although the press got review versions of Rainbow Islands for the Amiga and Atari ST in mid-1989, the game wasn't released until 1990. The reason was with the game, the conversions were finished, but confusions about the publishing rights, were suddenly three companies claimed to have the rights to publish the game. First, Telecomsoft acquired the rights from Taito and assigned Graftgold for the conversion. But as the production deadline passed, these rights were automatically reverted back to Taito. Now Taito claimed all rights, not only for publishing, but on all work done with the game, especially the conversion by Graftgold, which they refused. With Microprose buy of Telecomsoft in 1989 things got complicated, as the finished conversions were included in the acquisition, but they also had no permissions to publish them. Finally, after all these troubles, the versions were released by Ocean months later.

Awards

Amiga Joker

Issue 01/1991 – Best Dexterity Game in 1990

Amiga Power

1991 - Greatest Amiga Game of All Time

1992 - Greatest Amiga Game of All Time

1992 - #7 Greatest Amiga Game of All Time (Readers' vote)

Commodore Format

May 1991 (Issue 8) - listed in the A to Z of Classic Games article (Great)

January 1992 (Issue 16) - Cf's all time Top Ten Essential Mega Games

July 1993 (Issue 34) - Modern Classics: Platformers

March 1994 (Issue 42) Heaven – The Path to Righteousness: 20 Essential Games